Mexico's Value As A Trade Partner Tempers Drug Status

February 25, 1999|By Paul de la Garza, Tribune Foreign Correspondent.

MEXICO CITY — As U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffrey held a joint news conference with Mexican officials a few months ago to praise Mexico's efforts in the war on drugs, an American official in the audience winced.

The official is privy to U.S. intelligence on the drug war in Mexico and he did not agree with McCaffrey's glowing assessment. "We're getting our butts kicked," the official said.

Every year by March 1, under a 1986 law, the president must tell Congress whether the 31 countries where illegal drugs are produced or transported "fully cooperated" in the drug war the previous year.

A failing grade could trigger a cutoff of U.S. aid and earn the offending country a spot on the list of so-called pariah countries like Afghanistan and Iran. The administration can, however, waive economic sanctions if doing so is in the national interest.

The annual ritual is known as certification.

By most measures, 1998 was a dismal year in Mexican efforts to fight drug trafficking. Seizures of cocaine, marijuana and heroin fell appreciably, and drug arrests and investigations were down. No major drug lords were arrested.

Drug Enforcement Administrator Thomas Constantine told senators Wednesday that Mexico is losing the drug war and that Mexican drug traffickers' penetration of the U.S. has increased "dramatically." He did not say, however, that Mexico should be decertified.

Constantine and other U.S. officials say they are frustrated by the Mexican government's failure to combat official corruption, even within units specially trained or vetted by U.S. law enforcement, the military and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Earlier this month, drug and money-laundering charges against the Amezcua brothers of Guadalajara--the alleged methamphetamine kingpins who were nabbed by the Mexican police last year--were dismissed.

The Mexican government recently balked at extraditing to the U.S. suspects ensnared in a U.S. Customs money-laundering investigation.

Mexico threatened to bring U.S. Customs agents to trial for conducting at least part of the investigation on Mexican soil, supposedly without the knowledge of Mexican authorities. The Mexicans have since dropped its threat.

Despite this record, the Clinton administration is expected to certify Mexico as an ally in the drug war, prompting critics, including U.S. drug agents, to question the effectiveness of the law.

"It's a sad story," said a former federal drug agent in the U.S. with extensive knowledge of the drug war in Latin America. "And it doesn't really matter what the facts are when you have taken and politicized the whole situation."

Every year, certification comes under attack from critics, including the Mexican government, as arrogant and hypocritical, given America's appetite for illegal drugs. Every year, the process exposes the schism between administration officials, who are among Mexico's biggest cheerleaders, and frustrated U.S. drug agents, who fight the drug war every day.

On the U.S.-Mexico border, U.S. drug agents insist privately that certification is a farce, with politics and economics influencing the decision far more than a country's track record the previous year.

Independent Mexico watchers tend to agree.

George Grayson, an expert on Mexico at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va., echoed the sentiments of several analysts who argue that implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) five years ago rendered the certification process meaningless in regard to Mexico. In the view of these analysts, Mexico became too important a trade partner to be decertified by any U.S. administration.

Last year, trade between the U.S. and Mexico increased 11 percent, to nearly $175 billion, putting Mexico neck-and-neck with Japan as America's second-largest trading partner.

"I think the president and his aides realize Mexico is no paragon of virtue in the drug issue," said Grayson, a professor of government. But, he added, "You would complicate bilateral relations if you decertified. Better to keep more lines of communication open. You have bigger fish to fry in Mexico, and the bigger fish lie in trade, investment and the condition of the Mexican economy."

U.S. Sen. Paul Coverdell (R-Ga.), a key player in certification, agreed that "massive economic activity" complicates the process.

"On the one hand, you have data that says (Mexico has) not met the stipulations of this law," Coverdell, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, said Wednesday. "And on the other hand you have a community that is, at the upper levels, obviously endeavoring to struggle with this."

Coverdell said he sees no easy solution because of the scope of the drug problem. American officials estimate that two-thirds of the Colombian cocaine sold in the U.S. comes through Mexico.

Mexico also is a major producer of marijuana, heroin and methamphetamines.